3. General education. With regard to their common schools, and also to their colleges, they are far in advance of us in England. The existence of universal suffrage has the effect of stimulating educational efforts to a degree which would not otherwise be attained. The more respectable and intelligent of the citizens are made to feel that, with universal suffrage, their dearest institutions are all perilled unless the mass be educated.
As education is the great question of the day, I must not omit to make a few remarks on the Primary Schools of the United States. There is no national system of education in America. Congress does not interfere in the matter, except in the "Territories" before they become "States." The States of the Union are so many distinct Republics, and, in the matter of education, as in all their internal affairs, are left entirely to take their own measures. With regard to education, no two States act precisely alike. If we glance at the States of Massachusetts, New York, and Ohio, we shall, however, discover the three great types of what in this respect generally prevails throughout the States.
MASSACHUSETTS.—Scarcely had the "Pilgrims" been half-a-dozen years in their wilderness home before they began to make what they deemed a suitable provision for the instruction of their children. They adopted the same principle in reference to education and religion—that of taxation. A general tax was not imposed; but the people in the various townships were empowered to tax themselves to a certain amount, and to manage the whole affair by means of their own "select men." But, although this law has continued for 200 years, the people have always done far more than it required. In Boston, for instance, the law demands only 3,000 dollars a year, but not less than 60,000 dollars is raised and applied! So that here we have a noble proof, not so much of the effect of government interference, as of the efficiency of the voluntary principle in providing education for the young. The people of Massachusetts, and indeed of all the New England States, are doubtless the best educated in the world. Not one in a thousand of those born here grows up unable to read and write.
The calumniated "Pilgrims" were thus early attentive to the importance of education; and their system had been in full operation for between thirty and forty years, when, in 1670, Sir William Berkley, Governor of Virginia, the stronghold of the Anglican Church, thus devoutly addressed the "Lords of Plantations in England:"—"I thank God there are no free schools nor printing, and I hope we shall not have them these hundred years; for learning has brought disobedience and heresy and sects into the world, and printing has divulged them, and libels against the best government. God keep us from both!"
The system of Massachusetts may be regarded as a type of what prevails in the six New England States, except Connecticut, where there is a State fund of upwards of 2,000,000 dollars, yielding an annual dividend of about 120,000 dollars for school purposes.
NEW YORK.—In this State a large fund for schools has been created by the sale of public land. The proceeds of this fund are annually distributed in such a way as to secure the raising by local efforts of at least three times the amount for the same object. This fund is thus used as a gentle stimulant to local exertions. The system described will convey a notion of what exists in the middle States.
Ohio.—In this and the Western States every township is divided into so many sections of a mile square; and one of these sections, out of a given number, is devoted to the maintenance of schools. As a township increases in population, the reserved section advances in value. These schools are not subject to any central control, but are under the management of a committee chosen by the township.
Still education is not so general in all the States as might be wished. Miss Beecher, the daughter of Dr. Beecher, having devoted to the subject much time and talent, tells us that there are in the United States "a million adults who cannot read and write, and more than two millions of children utterly illiterate and entirely without schools!" Of the children in this condition, 130,000 are in Ohio, and 100,000 in Kentucky.
In the working of this system of education, the absence of a State Church affords advantages not enjoyed in England. Of late, however, an objection to the use of the Bible in these schools has been raised by the Roman Catholics, and the question in some States has been fiercely agitated. In the city of St. Louis the Bible has been excluded. In Cincinnati the Catholics, failing to exclude it, have established schools of their own.
This agitation is one of great interest. It leads thoughtful and devout men to ask, whether, when the State, assuming to be the instructor of its subjects, establishes schools, and puts Protestant Bibles, or any other, or none into them by law, they have not thenceforth Protestantism, Popery, or Infidelity so far by law established; and whether it is not better that the State should restrict itself to its proper function as the minister of justice, leaving secular instruction, like religious, to the spontaneous resources of the people.